'It’s a labor of love': Bonnie Hauser to join Orange County Board of Education

This story is the first of a series featuring the newly elected members of the Orange County Schools Board of Education. 

Bonnie Hauser is a self-proclaimed numbers person. 

She retired 10 years ago from her career as a management consultant — a job she said trained her to analyze the world structurally and critically — and will now enter into her first position in the public sector on the Orange County Schools Board of Education.

Hauser said her new job in the public sector is different from her corporate work.

“It’s a little different than making companies richer, now all of sudden, how do you make organizations that are serving the public and serving kids more effective,” she said. “It’s slightly different, and it’s a labor of love.” 

Hauser said she learned how to work within the public realm over the last 10 years through her work on various boards and nonprofits.

“I’ve been involved in a community for a long time doing a variety of different kinds of advocacy, everything from dealing with policy issues to serving kids in school," she said. "I even did animal-assisted therapy for a while and worked with kids in foster care and other settings.”

But Hauser said she always felt most passionate about assisting in schools. She said that in the past she volunteered in the district’s schools and that her work on boards and nonprofits gave her an understanding of state and local budgets.

“I ran for county commissioner and lost," she said. "And the truth is, the thing that has always driven my political interest is schools."

Hauser said once she assumes office, she hopes to use her experiences as a management consultant to focus on student achievement and teacher retention within schools. She feels the most pressing issues within her district are making sure students are excelling and that faculty and staff have an environment where they can develop professionally. 

“We are a small, and relatively well-funded school district," she said. "We should be an extraordinary place to work, we should be an innovation center for learning. I realize those are lofty goals, but I’m hoping we could work to move towards that” 

More specifically, Hauser said reports about students performing below their grade level concern her, along with the number of students who have moved to charter schools.

“We’re losing students," she said. "We have kids who are not performing at grade level and those performances, when you drill down or try to unpack those numbers, you realize race and income play a big role in academics.”

Hauser said she believes it is the job of board members to set the expectations of the district, but the work itself happens from the bottom up. She said she hopes to make her district great, but she also believes this greatness has to be equitable.

“I start with excellence, and then equity is a natural filter that you always look at excellence through," Hauser said. "And if excellence isn’t filtering into every population in your schools, whether it’s your students or your teachers, then you got to say, 'Well what’s going on here.'”

She said she wants to assist the positive work that is already being done by faculty within the district and the district’s new superintendent.

“I’m a professional problem-solver and I really love our schools, that’s why I’m doing this," Hauser said. "So, if I can be part of the process to take us from good to great, there’s nothing I would be more proud of.”

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